Paint Colors and Brands for the Dining Room

When I was younger, I toured Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. I remember the stately dining room, and tucking away an interesting tidbit of information: the walls were painted green because as a soothing, cool hue, it aided digestion. Further research on the Mount Vernon website reveals that Lund Washington, George Washington's brother, who was responsible for the design of the dining room, believed that green, of all paint colors, was least likely to fade. The walls of Washington's dining room were painted with a verdigris green, which is, by today's standards, perhaps a bit too outlandish for comfortable dining. Instead, the sage or olive green families of hues are best.

A nice effect that is both aesthetically pleasing and varied enough to avoid having walls that are entirely of one green color is to install (or make use of) a chair rail. A chair rail is a piece of molding that is installed half way up the wall, at chair height. This minor division can help you create a welcoming dynamic in your dining room. Remember that if you choose to use a chair rail, paint the lower half of the wall your darker green, instead of lighter, so that the room doesn't appear top-heavy.

If you're looking for the olive green family, a nice selection is Benjamin Moore Kennebunkport Green. Many companies, including Benjamin Moore, also offer soothing sage paint colors such as Saybrook Sage. What other companies provide quality paint? Behr is widely known as paint that applies nicely, meaning it coats the wall evenly and, if primed, potentially in one coat. Sears also sells interior paint and Kilz brand paint has proven to be true to the color swatch. Sherwin Williams is yet another well-known paint brand from which you can expect high quality.

So what do you do if your dining room already has a theme? Perhaps you have furniture that's a certain type of wood (dark, light or medium-mahogany, oak or cherry for example) or maybe you have a fabulous painting with which you don't want to part. The best way to figure out if a certain color of paint will work in a room is to paint a square of that color on the wall, at least one foot by one foot, and leave it there for a few days. If you have a darker wood, you may want to consider rich hues, more along the olive green line. If you have lighter wood, you might wish to use a sage theme. Medium color wood furniture could blend well with either.